Thursday, November 07, 2013

Adam and Eve & Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

Between weather, internet, travel plan changes I didn’t have time to post this before we left England last week so let me bring you up to date on the last few days of our visit to Cornwall.

I mentioned in the last post that Cornwall is a great place to visit not only for it’s history and geography but also for it’s photographic beauty as well. Visit any of the small fishing villages along the coast, point you camera anywhere the image is postcard perfect.

In Search Of Adam And Eve

We had visited several villages and captured some great images but Richard and his son Aaron, the perfect hosts at the beautiful Barclay House where we were staying mentioned the Eden Project, one of England’s most visited attractions and only about an hour away. That’s Richard and I in the photo to the right.

The Eden Project is a sprawling horticultural wonderland that is home to thousands of plants from all around the world.

Although it was quite fascinating to visit the various exhibits, I liked people watching even more. Turns out that our stay in Cornwall coincided with “half term” – think Spring/Fall break - for all the schools in England. Our anticipated quiet visit to the Eden Project didn’t quite turn out the way we expected as the center was jammed with of families and especially younger children enjoying the wonderful activities provided in anticipation of Halloween. But even with the larger crowds, LaDawn and I really enjoyed our visit and had fun capturing some nice images.

Lifestyles Of The Rich and Famous – Well, Mostly Rich

LaDawn and I are pretty big fans of the BBC show Downton Abbey. The story is set in one of the large Manor Houses in England – in this case, Highclere Castle. Try as we might we could not pull off a visit because it was closed during our stay on this week as well as our earlier visit in the spring. We did hear about Lanhydrock House, an equally impressive property in England and only about an half hour away. Lanhydrock is one of the grandest and most visited manor house destinations in all of England. Hit the link right here for more detail about the magnificent estate – really impressive.

We spent several hours there touring all 50 rooms and three floors of the estate. It was definitely a peek back into time and the class structure within England over so many years. Most of these large manor houses no longer exist. They simply became too expensive for the families to maintain anymore.

Part of that was the result of higher taxation by the government but more importantly because after WWI – the Great War – many of the menfolk were killed in the war and there just were not enough people to hire to fill all the positions necessary to run these large houses. In the case of Lanhydrock House the owners donated the house and all the property to the National Trust.

This is pretty cool thing in England. The National Trust undertakes to preserve these properties for their historical value making this history available to the general public. There are many such venues throughout England. For the reasonable cost of an annual membership you can visit as many as you can fit in your visit.

The highlight of our visit was the tour of the extensive gardens of the property. Even though it was quite late in the season the gardens were still full of color and vibrancy.

We cut our stay short in Cornwall by a day once we discovered that our 4 hour drive back to Southampton may be much longer than that due to weather, traffic, etc. It was a good decision because we could make the long drive in fairly good weather without the time constraints that would be put on us if we traveled the next day. It turned out to be a lovely drive through the English countryside in spite of the short rain bursts and some traffic along the way. Why not enjoy a few images from our two stops mentioned above.

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David Ziser, an internationally renowned portrait and wedding photographer, has shared his knowledge with ten’s-of-thousands of photographers, in 5 languages, and in 14 countries worldwide.
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